A tooth may develop a carious lesion. The carious lesion may infect tooth tissue. A carious lesion may infect tooth tissue in a root canal of the tooth. If tooth tissue in the root canal is infected, the infected tissue should be removed from the tooth to stop further spreading of the carious lesion.
A dental procedure for removing infected tooth tissue from a root canal typically requires specialized tools. Such tools may include one or more endodontic files. Endodontic files are typically used to remove infected tooth tissue within root canal, tissue adjacent the root canal, and other parts of the tooth. Endodontic files are also used to drill into tooth tissue, shape the canal and clean the canal.
Endodontic files are typically rotated to remove infected tissue. The files may be rotated by hand and/or machine. A fluted end of an endodontic file may be used to shape the canal. The files typically have cutting edges for removing tissue in and/or near the root canal. The cutting edges are typically edges of helical flutes formed in the file.
Endodontic files used to remove infected tissue from the canal need to be small enough to remove infected tissue from the canal without damaging uninfected tooth tissue. An endodontic file should, preferably, when operating in the canal, preserve a natural curvature of the root canal and shape the canal with no or minimal foramen transportation. To preserve the natural curvature, endodontic files may be flexible to navigate the root canal curvature and/or tapered to “fit” into a root canal and reach the apical foramen of the canal without perforating the canal.
Due to their small size, endodontic files are susceptible to breaking in the canal. For example, in operation, when navigating curved sections of the canal, the file may be subject to combined torsion and bending stresses. Such stresses may break a file. Breakage of the file in the canal during the dental procedure may cause undesirable complications. For example, it may be difficult to extract a piece of the broken file from the canal.
Additionally, operation of an endodontic file within a root canal may generates debris that may cumulate (e.g., dislodged tissue) in the canal. The presence of the debris may increase torsion stresses on the file the probability of file breakage. As a result of the small size of the canal and presence of the file in the canal, it may be difficult to remove the debris while operating the file.
It would be desirable to provide an endodontic file that is flexible and less susceptible to breakage while operating in the canal. It would further be desirable to provide an endodontic file that channels debris out of the canal while operating in the canal.